Commerce may be conducted in numerous venues. In particular, commerce may be conducted in real space or electronically, i.e., e-commerce. E-commerce is conducted via a computer network. Servers are used to store product and transaction information and computer terminals are used by purchasers to access the information stored in the server to view and modify such information via an electronic transaction.
E-commerce may also be conducted in the context of interactive television (iTV), e.g., for the purchasing of video-on-demand (VOD). For such interaction, set-top boxes may be programmed for bidirectional communication with a content provider. The set-top box may receive content from a content provider and display the received content on a television (TV) for viewing.
It is desirable to provide an improved iTV e-commerce experience for transactions with respect to products provided in real space, e.g., tactile product related transactions and/or for products that may be physically shipped to a consumer or otherwise communicated or delivered to a customer, e.g., electronically to a cell phone, handheld or personal digital assistant (PDA), other than through the TV, as with VOD programs.
In such circumstances, it is further desirable to provide information to the customers that facilitates an easy shopping experience. For example, once certain products are sold out or placed on sale, this information should be relayed to the customer as soon as possible. However, if all such information is transmitted to the set-top box of each customer on a real-time basis, the memory and processing capabilities of both the set-top boxes and the content provider may be unnecessarily burdened, resulting in a negative impact on the overall system, e.g., a slow-down in overall processing. Accordingly, it is desirable to selectively update product information that is displayed to the customer, for example, based on the particular product being marketed to the customer.